Requests for questions *not* to ask at the Dem debates:
1) “Why aren’t you polling better?”
2) “What is your plan to bring Americans together?"
3) “Say something nice about one of your opponents.”— Seth Masket (@smotus) June 24, 2019
NBC, “Here are the rules for the first Democratic debate”:
… Candidates will have 60 seconds to answer questions and 30 seconds to respond to follow-ups. And there will be no opening statements, though candidates will have a chance to deliver closing remarks.
The two-hour debates will zip by quickly, with five segments each night separated by four commercial breaks…
“It’s a little bit of exaggeration calling it a debate,” former Vice President Joe Biden joked in Iowa earlier this month. “It’s like a lightning round.”…
Savannah Guthrie, Lester Holt, Chuck Todd, Rachel Maddow and José Diaz-Balart will moderate the debates from the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami.
(To repeat: Chuck Todd has no business being on that stage.)
She was fiery. inspirational. She was empathetic and personally revealing. She was herself. She was the block of four center-stage contenders that night — she can shake up the race. https://t.co/1YyREXQMWL
— Jennifer Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) June 24, 2019
Reminder, not everybody — not even likely voters! — is caught up on their reading:
Only 22% of Democrats registered to vote say they know a lot about the candidates’ positions.
Only 35% say they’re paying close attention, with almost two-thirds saying they’re paying some or no attention.https://t.co/ZnuMh6mtnw— Meg Kinnard (@MegKinnardAP) June 24, 2019
… Some, like Charles G. Cooper, 57, of Orlando, Florida, say they figure it wasn’t worth tuning in too far before this week’s debates, which they expect to help shape the field. Cooper supports Biden — “I’m an Obama guy, and he was the vice president,” Cooper said — but he knows the front-runner has a history of gaffes during his past races and wants to see how he handles them.
Adam Pratter, 43, of San Diego, is also being strategic. He has studied up on the five candidates leading in the polls but studiously ignored the rest.
“Unless something extraordinary happens, they’re not going to make it,” Pratter said.
The stakes are high in this week’s debates and another set that will follow in late July . After that, it gets tougher to get onto the main stage.
For the third debate in September, the Democratic National Committee is requiring candidates to receive donations from 130,000 or more individuals and poll at 2% or higher in three polls. Analysts and many campaigns think that — and the difficulty raising money if a candidate does not continue to qualify for the debate stage — will winnow the field down quickly.
Banks hopes so. Her husband is a fan of New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, and she likes Sanders, but she doesn’t know how she could learn enough to judge the current, sprawling field.
“Some people will be weeded out as we go along, and I want that to happen so I can look at everybody’s ideals and experience,” Banks said…
Sidebar: NYMag did an interview with Marianne Williamson which actually gave me some idea of why she’s running her ‘recovery presidency’ campaign. AFAICT, she’s been extremely successful marketing what we 80s cynics referred to as ‘Wish Yourself Fixed’ self-help… which has its benefits, and its limitations. As I recall the flame wars of that departed era, if reading relentlessly inspirational literature stops you self-harming when you think about how daddy abused you, more power to you and the book; but if you discover daddy dearest has started abusing your kids, and all you do in response is pass along your well-worn copy of This Season’s Course of Mantras, that’s moving along a continuum from ‘not exactly helpful’ to ‘assisting felony child endangerment.’:
… “I’ve had a 35-year career addressing people’s trauma and how to turn that trauma into transformation,” she continues. “All that a country is is a collection of people, so the same psychological and emotional and spiritual forces that prevail within the journey of an individual prevail within the journey of a nation. The political Establishment is so blind to the deeper psychological and emotional factors at work. Our feelings do more to drive our behavior than does our intellectual analysis. Where people are not loved and not supported, despair arises, and large groups of desperate people are one of the most dangerous sociological elements possible. Desperate people are more vulnerable to ideological capture by genuinely psychotic forces. That’s true whether it’s a corner of an American city, where people are vulnerable to gangs, or the whole United States, where people are more vulnerable to an authoritarian demagogue.”…
The personal is political, but the political — tragically! — is not always personal. We’re not gonna “fix” Mitch McConnell or Brett Kavenaugh by resolutely empowering our joint emotional energy. Good news is Williamson will probably be forgotten by Spring 2020; bad news is she’s giving the Repubs an easy punch line to mock every other Democrat in the meantime…
cain
Just wanted to mention that I’m dating a black woman and she’s amazing. It’s long distance, but there is a chance she will move where I am given that there is a black community for her.
My choice is Elizabeth Warren. So whatever the others vote she is my first choice.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ? ??
Raven
WTF with the autoplay of a video from a post from last night????
Aleta
@cain: That’s wonderful.
OzarkHillbilly
What are they gonna say when the best they can come up with is trump?
eta I would literally like to see a box of rocks up on the debate platform because even that would be far more eloquent than trump.
satby
@rikyrah: Good morning ?!
I am not interested in watching the game show masquerading as a debate this week. I just want the field winnowed down to a reasonable number of candidates. And if Wilmer is his usual charming self, that he continues to sink.
geg6
Ugh. First round of freshman orientations start today. I will spend the next four days speaking almost continuously for about five hours a day, walking parents (and students, but with fewer granular details) through the financial aid, payment and FERPA information. I will be exhausted by the end and will be almost completely silent over the weekend so as to soothe my introverted soul.
I don’t know how these candidates do it.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: Like me, you’ll catch the highlights and the lowlights the next day and skip the inconsequential filler. If there are any.
Betty Cracker
@geg6: You poor thing. I am also an introvert, and years ago, I had a job with infrequent but unavoidable public speaking duties. It was absolutely hellish. I feel for you and hope you get through the week as painlessly as possible.
JPL
@satby: Same. The media will inform us of what we need to know. haha
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
NotMax
Phew. Monday was a busy day of doing tech work in anticipation of bringing the oldish PC along to give to Mom next month.
Baud
What you talking about, AL? This is awesome. I hope she says this at the debate.
Baud!/Marianne! 2020!: Psycho Killers qu’est-ce que c’est?
Baud
@JPL:
Don’t forget Twitter.
tobie
I won’t see the debate live since I’m in Germany but will read about it tomorrow. It’s 100 degrees here today. I’m in a university town that has 38,000 students and only 4,000 faculty (teaching & research positions; professors count for a mere 540 positions). This is typical for Germany. I will write something at some point on what free higher education looks like. The price is a plus, but the size, the lack of resources, the faculty/student ratio, the conditions of libraries and laboratories, and the retention rate for students are all troubling.
Kathleen
@satby: GM Satby. And I’m with you. Also, Chick Toady. Blech. Can’t stand to watch him.
ETA I’m sure he’ll gush over Wilmer.
Gelfling 545
@JPL: i will rely on the hardier souls on Balloon Juice. My blood pressure won’t stand it.
PaulWartenberg
my two cents on the Democratic candidates.
Harris/Warren or Warren/Harris. Either way, I’m in.
dr. luba
@tobie: We had free, or almost free, higher education (at public universities) when I was in school. NY and CA once had no tuition; in my state, MI, we paid about 10% of the actual cost. Reagonomics and the IGMFY attitudes of the Boomers changed all that. Students at Michigan’s public universities now shoulder about 90% of the cost of their education……and end up indebted for life.
The quality of education was good. Of course, we had many fewer administrators and fewer “adjunct professors” back then.
tobie
@dr. luba: I agree with your analysis. Until Reagan, states and the federal govt adequately funded higher education. Tuition ballooned when those funds were cut. I’d love to see them restored. This would be double win: it would dramatically reduce tuition at public & private institutions while maintaining quality. Warren’s proposal doesn’t address this. It puts most resources into canceling debt and isn’t particularly forward looking re the mission and shape of higher ed or sharp re how state universities are financed. Klobuchar has a better handle on this. Unfortunately her nuts & bolts approach doesn’t excite people.
Richard Guhl
Much as we may hate to admit it, most people don’t know or care about policy matters. Even harder to admit is that the debates are something of a joke.
If policy mattered, how did Reagan, Bush 1, Bush 2, and Trump get elected?
And what does anyone remember from the debates?
Nixon’s 5 o’clock shadow? Mondale asking Hart, “Where’s the beef?”
My hunch is that after 2+ years of Trump’s lies and chaos most voters want a calm, steady presence.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@PaulWartenberg: I don’t understand why so many people insist on advocating for wasting our greatest political talents in a ceremonial office with literally no political power. Leave them in the Senate, where we need all the help we can get. If you take them out, at least make it for something important like Secretary of the Treasury or AG.
Ceterum censeo factionem republicanam esse delendam.